


A Patchwork Family: Remembering

by Lbilover



Series: A Patchwork Family Series [7]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Memories, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-16
Updated: 2017-01-16
Packaged: 2018-09-17 23:48:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9351956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lbilover/pseuds/Lbilover
Summary: Sometimes it's good to remember.





	

_ Winterfilth, S.R. 1420 _   
  
“Sam, are you quite certain you wouldn’t rather stay home and rest?” Frodo asked, a hint of anxiety colouring his voice. “You don't have to go tramping about with me and Huan, not after the busy day you’ve had. I promise, we shan’t be gone very long.”   
  
“I’m not a bit tired,” Sam said stoutly as he put on his cloak. “And a walk in the fresh air with you and Huan is exactly what I need to set me up after our meal.”   
  
Frodo wasn’t so sure. Sam had been down at the Row at first light, helping his father, Daddy Twofoot and the Widow Rumble around their smials with various chores that had piled up during the busy harvest time. He’d not returned until just before dinner, and Frodo had caught him stifling several yawns over his rabbit stew. Frodo thought that perhaps it would be best if he abandoned the idea of a walk altogether, but if he made such a suggestion  _ now _ , Sam would undoubtedly feel guilty.    
  
In Sam’s absence, Frodo had worked diligently on the Red Book, until his fingers cramped and the muscles between his shoulder blades burned with hunching over his desk. He had skipped his daily outing with Huan, and the little whippet was plainly unhappy at this deviation from their usual routine, finding a few short turns about the garden a poor substitute.    
  
Huan had already made several trips to the front door, where he stood gazing back at his master with a wistful expression in his dark eyes. Frodo hated to disappoint him, and to be perfectly truthful, the thought of a stroll across moonlit fields with Sam was irresistible, especially when they’d scarcely set eyes upon each other all day.    
  
“Very well,” Frodo conceded, knowing that he was consulting his own wishes as much as Sam’s, “but we shan’t go far, and mind, you’re to tell me at once if you wish to turn back.”   
  
“And you call me a tyrant,” Sam complained, but his brown eyes were twinkling. “Now that’s settled, we’d best hurry. The moon’ll be rising over the Party Tree, and there’s a sight we don’t want to miss.”   
  
They set out across the garden, jumped the hedge at the bottom and went down into the Party Field. A full harvest moon, round and orange as a pumpkin, hung just above the  _ mallorn _ -tree, so that it almost appeared as if the tree was holding the moon cupped in its graceful, outstretched branches.   
  
“Oh Sam, did you ever see anything so lovely?” breathed Frodo, halting and reaching out instinctively for Sam’s hand. “We might almost be in Caras Galadhon again.”   
  
“Aye, it’s a fair sight, and no mistake. But I do wish the Lady could see it, too,” Sam remarked regretfully, as he often did when marvelling over the beautiful tree that was growing by leaps and bounds.   
  
“Perhaps she can. Perhaps she is looking in her mirror even now.”   
  
Hand-in-hand, they stood admiring the beauty of the  _ mallorn _  with its smooth silver trunk painted golden by the moonlight; even Huan, whose sensitive nose had been twitching from the tempting swirl of scents the night air carried, seemed mesmerised by the sight.    
  
After a time, as the moon moved above the tree’s branches, Frodo and Sam continued on, still hand-clasped. They cut across the Party Field, following the same path they had that long ago day when they departed home for what Frodo secretly had believed would be the final time. But by unspoken consent they did not continue to retrace their footsteps, but walked west along the Row and then took silently to the fields north of Hobbiton.   
  
The crisp autumn air felt delightful on their faces, and the moon, climbing ever higher into the heavens, grew smaller and turned gradually from orange to gold to silver-yellow. It shone brightly enough to cast shadows, but the paths they trod were familiar ones, and the clear light within Frodo that both Sam and Huan could see was more than sufficient to guide them.   
  
Huan, aquiver with energy, could not long tolerate the hobbits' sedate pace, and suddenly took off at run. He bounded effortlessly across the moon-silvered grass, his body rising and falling with every stride, but faintly, as though he was but the grey ghost of a dog- Huan of Valinor himself perhaps- and then he vanished into a copse of fir trees to their right.    
  
Frodo watched him go, a slight frown drawing in his dark brows.   
  
“Don't fret, love,” Sam said quietly, watching him in turn. “Huan won’t come to no harm.”   
  
“No, of course he won’t,” replied Frodo, relaxing and squeezing Sam’s hand. “It’s not as if he hasn’t done the same thing many and many a time on our walks. Only… oh Sam, it’s still difficult sometimes to believe that our home really is at peace again, and no evil lies waiting in the shadows for him or for us.”   
  
“Aye, so it is,” Sam agreed, and continued thoughtfully, “But I won’t tell you not to talk about the past or pretend like it never happened. Sometimes it’s good to remember. Makes the present all the dearer, don’t it. I reckon I learned my lesson that night.”   
  
Frodo didn’t have to ask which night Sam meant. There could only be one: the night of his anniversary illness, when the true extent of Sam’s love for him, and all that he had been willing to sacrifice for it, had been revealed. The night when Frodo had discovered that to remain in the Shire with Sam, and yet be healed and whole again, was no hopeless dream but reality.    
  
“Dear Sam,” Frodo said, “we both learned a valuable lesson that night.” Then he smiled. “But we are sounding decidedly serious, and it is far, far too beautiful a night for that, don't you agree?”    
  
He began to swing Sam’s hand to and fro as they walked, the way he used to when he was a tween and Sam but a fauntling tagging along after his adored Master Frodo. Sam smiled at this unaccustomed playfulness, the same sunny, open smile that he had worn in those long distant childhood days. But the hand that held Frodo’s was not that of a child, and the hobbit to whom that hand belonged was not a child, either.    
  
The moon shone full on Sam’s face, and as it once had shining on the Doors to Moria, its pale rays revealed faint lines otherwise hidden from view. But these lines were etched not on stone, but on skin. Lines that made Sam appear far older than his years, for they had been put there by the sufferings he had endured. And yet, to Frodo’s loving eyes, Sam only appeared the more beautiful, and Frodo's heart felt fuller than the harvest moon as he gazed at that dear countenance. But he said nothing, only held Sam’s hand even tighter as they went on.   
  
Huan rejoined them after a time, tracking them easily with his unerring sense of smell, though they’d gone some little way without him. He was panting, but looking quite pleased with himself, to judge by his wide canine grin. His whiskers and muzzle were dripping wet; there was a small stream that wound along the edge of the woods, and it was clear that he’d paid it a visit before returning.    
  
“You look like you enjoyed your run, Huan,” remarked Frodo, as the little whippet danced happily around them. Huan’s answering volley of barks was so enthusiastic that his front feet actually left the ground with the force of it, and the tips of his thin rose ears flapped up and down like a bird’s wings, causing both Frodo and Sam to laugh.    
  
A now contented Huan fell into his usual spot at Frodo’s left side, trotting effortlessly along as if prepared to do so all night, but on Frodo’s right, Sam’s footsteps began to lag as the path they followed breasted a long, gradual rise. When they reached the top, Sam paused and tried unsuccessfully to hide a yawn behind his fist. He looked ruefully at Frodo.    
  
“I reckon I am a bit tired,” he admitted, before Frodo could say a word. “I’m sorry, Frodo-love. Maybe we’d best go back before I fall asleep on my feet.”    
  
Frodo raised Sam’s hand to his lips and kissed it. “No apology necessary, my dear. But why don’t we stop and rest for a while before heading home. Come on.” He turned and led the way from the path to a grassy hillock, at the base of which he sat and drew Sam down beside him. “Lean back, Sam,” Frodo said, “and rest your head on my shoulder.”   
  
With a grateful sigh and no word of protest, Sam did. The grass was thick and yielding beneath and behind them, and the spot Frodo had chosen was sheltered from the wind. “This is nice,” murmured Sam when they were settled snugly together, with Frodo’s arm around Sam, and Huan curled up warmly at his master’s other side. “It reminds me…” he began sleepily, but nodded off before he could finish what he had been about to say.   
  
“I know of what it reminds you, Sam dear,” Frodo whispered tenderly, and then he shifted, and carefully eased Sam down so that his head was pillowed on his lap. Sam gave a little hitch of breath, and a contented wordless murmur, but did not wake. Frodo caressed Sam’s hair, smoothing it with his maimed hand, and remembering the many times on the Quest when he had been the one to lie thus, his last memory before sinking into sleep Sam’s whispered reassurance that he was safe.    
  
A feeling of peace such as he had rarely known filled Frodo then, that he could return this quiet comfort to the one who had offered it so freely on the Quest. Very gently, he ran his fingers through Sam’s brown curls, crisp and clean and a trifle overlong; Sam was nearly due for the Widow to cut his hair. Frodo recalled the painstaking gentleness with which Sam would untangle his snarled curls at such times, first with the wooden pocket comb that he’d brought- one of those small, necessary items that Frodo had forgot and Sam, looking pleased as a wizard pulling a rabbit from his hat, had taken out in triumph when Frodo had needed it- and then at the very last, when that, too, had been lost like so many things, with his fingers, though Frodo’s hair had been filthy and unlovely to touch.    
  
Many of the events during their time in Mordor remained hazy and indistinct to Frodo, for they had been veiled by the wheel of fire that had increasingly claimed his mind, both waking and in sleep. Yet Sam’s love and caring had been a constant thread that might at times have stretched thin as gossamer, but had always held fast, tethering some minute part of Frodo to his real self and to their life in the Shire.    
  
Huan’s chin was resting on Frodo’s narrow hip. His dark eyes, the moon reflected in their depths, were fixed intently on his face.    
  
“Can you hear me thinking?” Frodo asked softly. “I’d never have survived without him, Huan. But you know that, don’t you, for I wouldn’t have had a clue how to care for you when I brought you home, if it wasn’t for Sam.” He smiled. “But I hope I’ve learned to be a better master to you since then.”    
  
Huan’s answering whine was so soft that it was barely a vibration in his throat, but the look in his eyes left no doubt as to his feelings on the matter.    
  
The stars wheeled overhead and the moon sailed among them and Frodo sat in contented silence while Sam slept. He did not feel at all sleepy himself, though it was growing late. He listened to the familiar nocturnal sounds of the Shire, sounds that he had first learned to love during the years he lived with Bilbo, who had enjoyed nothing better than a good tramp on a moonlit night: the soft  _ who who who _  of an owl from the woods, the distant bark of a fox, and all around him the low but persistent song of crickets. So much peace and beauty, he thought, and his now to enjoy for years to come… with Sam.   
  
“What time is it?” asked a sleepy voice. It was Sam, waking at last, and blinking his eyes owlishly. “And how did I come to be resting here? Not that I’m complaining, mind.”   
  
“I don’t know the time,” Frodo replied, smiling down at him, “and I thought you’d be more comfortable that way.”   
  
“Seems funny, like,” Sam remarked, “me being down here and you up there.”   
  
Frodo knew exactly what he meant, but said: “It’s not such a great distance.” He stooped and kissed Sam sweetly on the mouth. “There: do you see?”   
  
He drew back only slightly, for Sam’s hand was cupped warmly at the nape of his neck and held him a willing captive. “Aye, I do see. The fairest sight any hobbit has been blessed to see: you, Frodo-love, with the stars all a-tangled up in your hair.”   
  
“Oh Sam, I was remembering…” Frodo began.   
  
But an impatient Sam pulled him down into another kiss, sweet, too, but with an edge of hunger. “Now’s not the time for old memories,” he whispered against Frodo’s lips. “It’s time for us to make some new ones.”   
  
And so they did.   
  
~end~


End file.
